The Darkest Corner (Gravediggers #1)
Released: May 23, 2017
Romantic Suspense
Pocket Books

Reviewed by Mandi

The start of a series called “Gravediggers” which sounded really cool to me plus the blurb drew me in:

The Gravediggers aren’t exactly what they seem. They’re the most elite of the world’s fighting forces—and all they have in common is that they’ve been betrayed by the countries they’ve died for. Because they are dead. To their country, their military, and their families.

Sometimes the dead do rise…

Deacon Tucker is a dead man walking. A former black ops agent, he was disavowed and stripped of all honor before being recruited as a Gravedigger. But his honor and good name no longer matter, because no one knows he’s alive, and he’ll never get the recognition he deserves. His mission is simple: save the world or die trying. And for God’s sake, don’t ever fall in love. That’s a rule punishable by death. The kind of death a man can’t be brought back from.

Tess Sherman is the only mortician in Last Stop, Texas. She has no idea how Deacon Tucker ended up in her funeral home, but she’ll eat her hat if he’s only a funeral home assistant. Deacon is dangerous, deadly, and gorgeous. And she knows her attraction to him can only end in heartache.

Deacon is on a mission to stop the most fatal terror attack the world has ever known—what’s known as The Day of Destiny—a terrorist’s dream. But when he discovers Tess has skills he can use to stop them, he has to decide if he can trust her with secrets worth dying for. And, most important, he has to decide if he can trust her with his heart.

For some reason I had it in my head that this was going to be a paranormal romance. I even continued that assumption for the first few chapters of this book. I thought Deacon was somehow brought back from the dead in a supernatural way, and his boss, the elusive Eve Winters was some sort of supernatural being. This is false. I finally realized while there is some super secret serum that can make it look like the heroes die in this series, they don’t really die. The heroes in this series are ex- CIA agents, Navy SEALS etc… who have disgraced themselves in different capacities and have been chosen by Eve Winters to “die” to everyone in their life – but to secretly live in a tiny little town and report to three top officials in the government. They go on extremely classified missions, ridding the world of terrorists.

This book features Deacon as our hero. A former CIA agent, he was Eve’s first recruit years ago. Waking up from the dead is a real bitch, and not being able to have any contact with anyone from your former life can be devastating. But Deacon commits himself to this team of black-ops men and to fighting terrorism. As the years go by, Eve recruits more men and they all move in together in a funeral home run by a woman named Tess. They chose a funeral home because they can bring “dead” bodies there without much suspicion.

Tess loves running this funeral home and working as a mortician. She sometimes feels like she should leave this small town and see what else the world has to offer, but for the most part she is content. When a new owner takes over (Eve) and hires a bunch of huge men to work with her, Tess is confused. Living in such a small town, they don’t have that many deaths a month. But these guys keep the yard clean, and help her with the heavy lifting, so she doesn’t question it too much.

Tess and Deacon have been making googly eyes at each other for some time, and as the book progresses, their attraction grows. Tess starts to get even more suspicious as to why these guys really work at the funeral home, and secretly, these guys are trying to stop an attack with a deadly gas.

This book couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a cutesy small town romance, or a gritty black-ops book. It didn’t work trying to do both. The small town romance comes across well. Tess’s mother is a little (a lot) zany and added some darker  humor into the book. The local beauty shop is full of old ladies and gossip. Much time is spent in the town and learning about Tess’s life and the people she knows. Had Tess and Deacon’s romance unfolded in this small town and he had a different profession, I think I would have liked this book a lot more.

On the other hand we have Deacon and his team of agents. All alpha, with attitude and swagger. Did I mention attitudes? The suspense and danger and everything surrounding Eve and her team and the danger just didn’t work for me. It didn’t feel realistic. I sometimes like the over the top black op books but with the cozy small town backdrop, the crazy black ops stuff felt unreal. And the mysterious Eve Winter  did nothing for me.

The romance unfolds okay – it’s not rushed but it might not be enough to get me to read another one in this series.

Grade: C

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